Soldiers responded to attack by firing cannons from here into the Miners Nest encampment on Walden Ridge, south of the Wye Gap. They also shot cans filled with mud through the Wye Gap into the town of Coal Creek to signal that the town could be destroyed at any time. Welsh miners who left the area after convicts arrived in 1877 kept close ties with local miners. Coal Creek miners helped stop attempts to bring convicts to mines in southeast Kentucky in 1886, and Kentucky miners reciprocated in the fight against convict labor during the Coal Creek War.